


The Poisoned Empire

by markihost



Category: Video Blogging RPF, markiplier - Fandom
Genre: Darkiplier Mark Fischbach, Egos, Gen, Markiplier - Freeform, Markiplier egos - Freeform, Who Killed Markiplier - Freeform, Who Killed Markiplier?, fan fiction, jacksepticeye - Freeform, platonic darkstache, wilford warfstache - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 19:30:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13596819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/markihost/pseuds/markihost
Summary: What would you do to save your best friends? When offered the opportunity to save Damien and Celine, the Colonel immediately jumps into action....This fic picks up immediately after the ending of "Who Killed Markiplier?" and serves as an origin story to many of our beloved Egos.





	1. Falling

When you wake up, the first thing you feel is the chill of the tiled floor. The cold sensation is a sharp contrast to first the dull ache your muscles have sustained from falling down a story onto the foyer of Mark’s mansion. Then comes the feeling of the wound. You slowly sit up, wincing at the sharp shooting stings, but you’re just glad that the bullet seems to be out.

The Colonel must have removed the bullet while we were out, you muse to Damien and Celine. Almost as if in response, your vision swims in the white-hot sea of pain, red and blue flickering and bleeding out in ripples. Slowly, color begins to fade back in and you see the dark cherry of the wood on the bannisters. The flaring light of the chandelier fades back into its bulbs. And as you sit up, you look around.

The sun is filtering in. In the aftermath of this bloody fight, the mansion is silent in a way that would almost seem peaceful- the calm after the storm.

But you know better. You know that this is only the eye. And the clouds- the clouds are swirling around inside of you. They’re black and angry and banging- is that your head throbbing or your muscles stiffening or your wound screaming, as the clouds pull at it, looking for escape, looking to unleash the pain the pain the pain-

“Oh no! No! It’s okay.” You spin around to see the Colonel - William - seated in the red velvet armchair by the door. His eyes are confused, but they twinkle in relief behind those quirky- _ridiculous-_  round spectacles. He extends a hand as you recoil from him. The memory of the soldier shoots fresh through you again. As he rises from his seat slowly, Damien’s -  _your - my_  - cane in hand, he stumbles forward saying, “I- I thought you were dead.”

You don’t say anything as he runs with his words, stuttering, “I-I-I mean, of course you’re not dead! You’re not- how could you be dead?” His breath quickens, he’s quickly inhaling and exhaling, as he continues, “I mean, I-I wouldn’t have killed you,”  _but he did._  “I-I didn’t kill you.”  _But you did._ But William doesn’t realize that, it hasn’t hit him, the gears are turning in his head as he tries to reconcile the reality of Mark falling, of Damien disappearing and Celine taken over and vanishing in a flash and shooting you with the person in front of him.

“I mean, of cour- I-I..I didn’t kill anybody!” The Colonel places the cane on a nearby counter. His mind has rejected the reality- come to a false conclusion. How irritating. How blind. He laughs as the rejection sinks into the stress caked on his mind as the gears start to crack and jam and stall. “It was all a joke!” He stumbles back, a jubilant, cracked grin on his face as he begins to laugh.

A thought stirs. You know it’s not the full-bellied laugh he shared with Mark and Damien as a child. This is a nervous laugh as he accepts his fiction, and then a chortle as he says, “Of course, it was all a joke!!! Were you in on this!?” He points at you, his eyes crinkled as he continues to laugh. “Did Damien put you up to this? Of course he did!” He begins to limp off, like a foal first learning to trot. “Damien, where are you, you rapscallion?” He still chuckles,”Where are you? Celine? Ah, it’s time to come out now!”

But William is no young foal, he’s a broken man. And it is time to shatter him. “It was good! It was good, you almost had me!” You can hear the halls echo with his laugh. “Ha! Haha… Celine?”

_It’s time to come out now._

It’s your hand that reaches out to pick up Damien’s cane, hesitatingly. Your fingers slowly wrap around the cane. As William’s voice fades away, you disappear as well. Your vision flares in time with your heartbeat, red and blue blurring before your eyes as the House- as what’s left of Damien and Celine begins to push and tug. Your stomach burns as the wound begins to feel like it’s tearing you in half- and it is, as you- the District Attorney, the Mayor’s partner, the person that learned who killed Markiplier, who is shoved out of your body- and the festering fear of dying, the resentment at the Colonel, the disgust for Mark, for the Seer who twisted life into a nightmare, and for what’s left of Damien remains.

It’s Damien’s face examining that cane in their hands. Feeling the ache that you felt and cracking his neck and shattering the mirror you’re watching from with the shockwave- a dull wave of oppression from the House in your- its body. Whoever this is, he looks at his reflection in the mirror, and his eyes- your dark eyes- pierce you. His nostrils flare in anger and he stalks off.

And you are alone.


	2. Missing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leaving the District Attorney to collect himself, Will walks through Markiplier Manor searching for his friends...

Mark’s mansion always felt like a maze. William stumbled through the halls, calling, calling, limping…

Ahhh, he was tired. Everything was beginning to blur together, the walls and the halls and all those beautiful windows. He smiled, feeling the sun warm his face. He would find Damien, slap him on the back, he would get to watch Celine’s beautiful face bloom into a smile, hear her high peals of laughter. Once upon a time, he could get her to laugh so hard that tears started to run down her face.

Perhaps she would laugh now. Perhaps this whole accursed party could end on a laugh… and then he could rest. Oh, how tired he was. His right leg ached, and he would do anything for a good lie-down in one of the guest rooms. He wanted to stretch out on one of those huge beds with the cool blankets and to feel the pillows, fluffed like cotton candy. 

Maybe Celine could join him, he smiled, for old times’ sake. 

Though, as the ache in his leg flared up again, he frowned. Where  _ were  _ they? Summoning up an old trick he had learned, he called up that same memory of Celine in his mind. Celine, so beautiful in that starry black dress, her smiling, unreadable eyes behind the thin lace of the veil. He felt the floor fall out from underneath him as he dropped into a room upstairs.

It looked terrible.

The green curtains had been torn to pieces. The sun shone in the remnants of the room where it could. Its rays fell upon a smashed table, and underneath his boots, William could feel splinters. Reaching down, he picked up a piece of bent cardboard. Squinting as he tapped one of the lenses adorning his spectacles into place, he recognized it as a piece of a tarot card. The blue of a sky was singed, as was the once-white border, but William could barely recognize the bit of a star chart pattern on the back. 

But no matter the state of her room, Celine was still gone. He felt his heart begin to beat faster, his stomach begin to churn. Where could she be? Why had his magic brought him here? 

He decided to try again. The familiar yellow and pink vortex swirled around him again, awashing him in a refreshing sensation- like taking a sip of lemonade on a hot summer day. He thought of Damien, immaculately dressed in his suit, freshly pressed dress shirt and that dorky white bowtie. Striking a formidable pose, shoulders out but always with a soft smile to offer, William smiled at the thought of his friend, no- his dear brother in everything but blood. William’s magic inserted him at the top of the staircase, just outside the room. The sun rays were bright enough that the Colonel could see the dust settling on the bannister.

“...Damien?” He ventured, “Are you there, old boy?”

Silence. 

William’s heart kept pumping, faster and faster. If it were an engine, it’d be working overtime, exhaust pipes flaring. His breath quickened again. This game of hide-and-seek wasn’t funny anymore. Where could they be?

The District Attorney. They had been in on the joke. They  _ had  _ to know where his friends were. He closed his eyes one more time. He felt that familiar magic coalesce around before he knew it, he was in front of-

“Damien, my dear fellow!” It was like the floodgates had opened, and with a stuttering sigh, William grasped his chest in relief, “I was so worried! I’ve been looking everywhere for you, for Celine! Where the devil have you be-” He gasped, seeing the browned bloodstain oh his friend’s shirt. “Oh no, no, what happened to you? Are you bleeding, are you-” He ran forward, and reached for “Damien’s” wound. And as William reached out, the man slapped away his hand with a snarl.

“Dames?” Will frowned, “Are you alrigh-” 

That was when everything snapped. 

Because that wound, its placement… it was familiar. 

That dress shirt that the man was wearing wasn’t naturally ruffled in Damien’s style, nor was it wrinkled from the last nights of exhaustive investigation and partying. The black jacket too, was not one of Damien’s.

“ _ You were looking for the District Attorney,” _ the man spoke,  _ “You were looking for us.” _

_ “And here we are.” _


	3. Finale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long hiatus. Please find the last three completed chapters here to finish off the story so far.
> 
> When we last left off, our dear Colonel had been reunited with his old friend. But everything is not what it seems...

Chapter 3 - Dramas and Dreams

Your hands are full. As you balance your burden in one arm, you frantically fumble for your keys, shove one into the keyhole, push down on the handle and push the door to your small apartment open. Grumbling, you barely manage to tug the keys out of the lock before the package goes sliding off of your right arm and into your other arm. You stumble as you struggle to keep the unwieldy thing in your grip. And as you bolt the door shut, you hear a quiet giggle behind you. 

“What have you got there, William?” 

You’re looking for a place to set this package down, but your eyes can only seem to focus on Celine. Her red velvet dress stands out as she lounges on your brown leather couch. Her bare feet are kicked up on one of the armrests and her black stiletto heels have been tossed into the corner. 

“Well, I’m glad you asked, madame,” you say in a silly slurred voice. You finally give up and set the box on your scuffed hardwood floor. Now hands-free, you jump the remaining distance to the couch and proceed to tickle Celine. As she erupts in peals of laughter, you plant a kiss on her forehead before standing back up. Striding back over the box, you pull out its contents. “It’s a radio!”

“A radio!” Celine laughed, “That’s lovely, Will.” As you plug in the radio and adjust the knobs, she stands to face you with a slight smile on her face. Her lips are shy and gently curl upwards, but her eyes aren’t. They glisten and smirk as she extends an arm out to the stocky soldier. “Shall we dance?”

Celine immediately takes the lead as you take her hand, putting her hand around your waist, and leaving your hand to rest on her shoulder, the pair of you lean against each other as you slowly sway around the apartment. Once, Celine attempts to dip you, and she laughs as your eyes widen slightly in surprise. As soon as your leg is back on the ground and you’re upright, you join in on the laughter.

“You know, I didn’t actually purchase this for the music,” you say as Celine leans against you. She responds by looking up at you with a “hmmm?”

“No, there are a couple of radio shows that I love listening to, and I didn’t want to walk all the way to the tavern to listen to them.” You smile, thinking of the warm voices of familiar radio hosts, of fantastic stories of alien invasions and lone cowboys. “It lets me go somewhere else. Imagine that I’m with other people, or that I’m someone else.”

_ It lets me dream that I’m anywhere but here. _

_ Of course I’d see something more than darkness if I opened my eyes. _

_ That’s Celine leaning against my chest.  _

_ That’s Celine leaning against my chest. _

_ That’s Celine leaning against my chest, _

_ I wish I could feel like I could breathe again- _

“Colonel!  _ Colonel! _ Will!!!” That voice… He could feel the pressure pushing down on his chest lifting as he slowly opened his eyes to see…

“Damien?”

* * *

 

Chapter 4 - Reunited

“Damien! Oh, God, is that really you?” Will squinted as his vision blurred and slowly sharpened. Damien leaned over Will, grasping him by the arms as he broke into a smile and a relieved laugh. 

“It is, old friend, it’s me.” Damien said, his relieved smile relaxing into a fond grin.

“Goodness, it’s good to see you.” 

“Where are we?” Will struggled to move but could barely managed to wriggle. As he struggled to crane his neck around, he saw a space lit only by lanterns, dimly lighting paths around  the area but still obscuring a large majority of the room. “I- I can barely-”

“I think we might still be in the House,” Damien said, looking around, “But I’ve been wandering around for ages and I haven’t found so much as a wall or an exit anywhere.”

“For ages…” Will slowly tried to move again, deliberately, carefully moving his arm, grasping his hand around Damien’s arm, squeezing. It felt solid. Damien felt  _ real.  _ “Where were you, Dames? The last time we saw you, you were with…”

“Celine.” Damien nodded solemnly. “Yes, I know.” 

“There was… there was a feeling- and my vision blurred- it felt so… crushing- like now, and we saw Celine before she vanished. You were already gone… what happened?” 

“Celine tried to speak with Mark again. I couldn’t let her get involved with something like that alone. But… I think it went wrong. I felt something grab at me, it pulled me down through the floor- and before I woke up here, I saw Celine… change.” Damien shook his head.

“Celine.. what do you mean changed?” William looked into his friend’s dark eyes. “Where is she now?”

Damien shuddered, “She started glaring- and her smile- it was so strange. I can’t describe it, but it was such an  _ angry  _ smile- like a smirk. I’ve never seen her behave that way before. You know her posture’s always been perfect,” he rambled on, losing himself in the memory, “but… it was like she straightened up in a way that was… unnatural. But enough of such horrible business… can you stand? We need to find a way out of here.”

“I…” Will cringed, as he felt the wood against his back in the table he laid on. “I think I can…” He slowly sat up, wincing as the pressure grew harder and he struggled to breathe. “It feels… terrible, Damien… how are you moving?”

“It’s crushing, isn’t it?” Damien said, “I was just lying there for awhile before I could even muster the energy to try to move. Don’t worry,” he said, as William finally managed to settle his feet on the ground, “it gets easier. Now, we need to move… We don’t want to die down here.”

“Move… Damien, Damien,” William realized, “Your partner… he had your cane- he took your face, I thought he was you...” 

“That wasn’t my partner.” Damien’s voice dropped into a near-monotone. His arm went slack in Will’s grip for a moment before his fists started to clench. “That was Mark.”

“Mark?” Will shuddered, “How could it have been Mark?” He tried to stand and felt an intense wave of nausea wash over him. He fell to one knee, barely clinging to the neatly pressed coat of Damien’s suit.

“This house… it’s been letting Mark steal bodies. He took my body-”

“What?” William stared at him, “When?  _ How? _ ”

“I don’t know.” Damien’s voice went flat and he started growling. “But I had only just gotten back when the House took me,  _ AGAIN.  _ Do you have  _ any _ idea what it’s like,  _ Colonel?  _ To have control ripped away from you like that?”

“No, I…” Will recoiled, but not letting go of his friend, “I’m so sorry, Damien, I didn’t know.”

“It’s… fine.” Damien sighed, holding Will to himself tighter. “What matters is that we’re here now.”

Will slowly wrapped his arms around Damien in an embrace. “Yeah.”

* * *

 

Chapter 5 - Complete Darkness and Absolute Control

The pair had only been wandering through the darkness for a few hours, but to William, it felt like it had been days. With each step, the dull ache in his wounded leg flared higher and higher, like a fire licking at a door, slowly sinking its jaws into the wood, eating away more and more until he fell. As William felt himself buckle, he also felt Damien’s arms around him, easing him down, his hands firmly around his shoulders, almost like a bird trying to tug a heavy burden into flight. 

Slumped on his knees, the Colonel’s ramrod posture sagged, his head leaning forward as if he could doze off. “I don’t know if I can carry on anymore,” William muttered. His throat was so dry that it was a struggle to speak. “I’m just so tired…” The whisper fluttered out of his mouth like a falling leaf. 

“ **_No!_ ** ” Damien’s voice rang through the silent basement like a crack of thunder. William flinched. “I’m sorry,” Damien sighed, “We’ve just been  _ stuck _ in here, my partner is….” He screwed his eyes shut, and stretched his neck as if it ached. “I just… have to escape. I can’t be this… helpless, so pathetic.”

“You’re not pathetic,” William said, “It’s not your fault that Mark trapped you down here-” 

“Well, you know what, Will?” Damien snarled. “Sometimes I wish it was!”

“What?” William looked up at his standing friend. “What are you saying?”

“That _ I’m so tired _ of not having control in my life. Of constantly being a pawn in someone else’s hand.” William could feel Damien’s grip grow tighter, his knuckles growing grey as the color drained away.

“Damien, please…” Will felt goosebumps rise on his arm, as Damien dropped to his knees and brought his fists down on the pavement with a sickening  _ crack. _ He could see the blood start to flow out from the cuts on Damien’s hands, but the man didn’t even flinch. He began striking the ground again, and again, and  _ again.  _ As Damien screamed, Will could feel his stomach dropping like a rollercoaster. His heart churned. As waves of nausea washed over him, he felt as though he might collapse himself, the weight pressing down on him in a dull throbbing pain. As the push grew stronger and stronger, Will could have sworn that he could see Damien… split, as one Damien in red raised his head to the ceiling in a roar, while the blue silhouette seemed to grab for his bowtie, as if it were choking him. He was tugging, tugging, as if the tie were a snake…

And as it came loose and fell away limp in Damien’s hand, the throbbing grew and  _ cracked,  _ and Will fell to the ground in agony. He opened his mouth to scream, but he couldn’t hear it. The splitting headache was intensifying, and Will thought he would do anything, anything - to escape this pain and  _ get away _ -

And that was when the floor finally, blessedly, fell out from underneath him, and Will felt his vision go gray with relief. 

\-------------

When Will awoke, the first thing that he felt was the coolness of the grass against his flushed face. As he reached out to push himself up to his feet, he felt his muscles groan in protest, and as his bad leg seized up, he found himself with his face back in the dirt. Rolling onto his back, he winced and hissed as he felt a sharp ache everywhere. It felt as though the neurons had been firing on all cylinders as he watched smoke billow over the blue sky.

Smoke…

Forcing himself to bolt upright, he saw the mansion in flames. Within the windows of the expansive building, fire was dancing, and in the midst of it all, standing in front of him with his eyes on the mansion, was Damien’s silhouette. He was so still, so entranced by in the middle of it all that it almost seemed as though the smoke coming from the house was radiating off of him. 

“Damien…”

Will could barely speak, but Damien seemed to hear, breaking out of his trance and turning towards his friend. 

“Will!” He exclaimed, stumbling over to him with a jubilant grin on his face. “You’re awake!” 

“The manor…” Will slurred, “How…. why…”

“Because it did all this to us, Will. Celine always said it wasn’t safe here.  _ George _ said it was cursed. And Mark…” Damien scowled, “Mark killed me here. This place has made me….”

There was a pause.

“But there’s nothing left for us here.” Damien straightened up. He stood proud over Will, looking down. “I know where Mark would run after this. We can find him. We can find my body. We can set all this right.”

As he spoke, Will could only look to the house… think of running through the halls with Mark and Damien as boys, of all the wild parties, of kissing Celine in some hidden alcove.

It was all gone. 

_ They _ were all gone. 

And he looked to Damien, searching his face for any sign that he was wrong, that  _ something  _ was wrong. But the fire made his face glow with life, no sign of the red and blue visages, those… demons. 

Will stood. Adjusted his suspenders. Wiggled his mustache before sighing. When he looked up to meet Damien’s gaze, he nodded.

“It seems,” he said, “that we have a date with Markiplier.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was my first attempt at writing a multi-chaptered story in years, and while I’m not entirely satisfied with how it turned out, it was an excellent experience and a joy to write. My special thanks go out to my friends, both online and offline, who were so supportive of my trying to get back into writing in our private conversations. 
> 
> Countless thanks to @wholesome-pasta for reading and reblogging each installment when you didn’t have to, and for always being a supportive friend.
> 
> Thank you to @reverseblackholeofwords for being so inviting to spin-offs set in your universe, and for being one of the best fic writers in the YouTube community. Your creativity inspired me to begin writing again, step by step, especially with this first story, where my prompt was to “write a gritty reboot,” and I chose to write a story based around Heroes and Legends.
> 
> And thank you for reading. Until next time.


End file.
